Melania Trump's Age Gap With Donald Could Shave Years Off Of Her Life Expectancy — Here's Why

Unless there's a major plot twist, Donald Trump and his immediate family will remain financially secure. And not worrying about money can help extend a person's life, according to 2025 research by the National Council on Aging. In fact, individuals who are at the top of the wealth chain have double the mortality rate of those at the bottom.

However, having access to funds isn't the only determinant of life expectancy. Another determinant is strong and pertains to Trump's wife, Melania: their age gap.

The spread between Donald and Melania spans a full 24 years, although an AARP article shows that many high-profile couples have both comparable and broader age divides. (Side note: The guys aren't always the older ones because some women prefer dating younger men; legendary sex symbol Joan Collins has been married to someone 32 years younger for more than two decades.) To be fair, ordinary people don't shy from age gaps as much as you might think, with a 2022 Ipsos poll finding that 39% of participants admitted to dating someone at least 10 years older or younger.

In other words, it's not unusual to see broad marital age gaps, but evidence suggests those gaps aren't necessarily equally positive for both partners when it comes to mortality risks. On the contrary, women in a sizable age-gap relationship, like Melania, tend to get the short end of the life expectancy stick. 

(Here's how Donald Trump's age-gap relationship with Melania could affect his life expectancy.)

This conclusion stems from a 2010 study in Demography that investigated married partner age gaps and individual partner life expectancy. The study concluded that in a relationship with a seven- to nine-year gap (the largest gap involved in the study), the man's life expectancy improved by 11%. However, the woman's mortality risk dipped.

The study surmised that the couple's social life was likely involved in this outcome, with author Sven Drefahl noting during an interview, "On average, men have fewer and lesser quality social contacts than those of women" (via CBS News). For instance, women often serve as the social anchors in marriages, bringing new friends into the relationship. Men are less apt to do likewise (a phenomenon called "mankeeping"), so they depend upon their wives to help forge social connections. Consequently, women get less of a social benefit because they don't need their husbands to drive social bonds.

Fair enough, but wouldn't women at least still get the advantages of having social support, even though they're bringing people into their circle? Unfortunately not, and here's why: There's still a social taboo that can sometimes cause other couples to frown upon forming strong friendships with couples who have age gaps.

A 2018 article in Current Psychology found evidence to support prejudice against age-gap couples compared with same-age couples. This means that despite their best efforts, women in relationships with wide age gaps might find their friend groups less emotionally uplifting and more eyebrow-raising.